Excerpts from Books and Wikipedia
" . . . Garrison grew to manhood poor, talented, and 'all on fire' with religious zeal to set the world aright in preparation for the Second Coming of Christ. . . . The first issue of the Liberator appeared in January 1831, bearing a statement of editorial policy that became famous. 'I am aware that many object to the severity of my language, but is there not cause for severity: I will be as harsh as truth, and as uncompromising as justice. On this subject, I do not wish to think, or speak, or write, with moderation. No! no! Tell man whose house is on fire to give a moderate alarm; tell him to moderately rescue his wife from the hands of the ravisher; tell the mother to gradually extricate her babe from the fire into which it has fallen;--but urge me not to use moderation in a cause like the present. I am in earnest--I will not equivocate--I will not excuse--I will not retreat a single inch--AND I WILL BE HEARD.' . . . Garrison's Liberator became the most prominent voice of a distinctive antislavery position known as abolitionism, whose platform demanded that emancipation should be immediate, not gradual, without compensation to the masters, and without the deportation or 'colonization' of the freedpeople. On January 6, 1832, in the basement of Boston's African Society, dedicated to the principles of abolitionism. Within a few years a nationwide American Anti-Slavery Society had been formed, with a network of abolitionist associations operating throughout the North, despite periodic violent harassment from racist mobs. . . . . By 1835, the ASSS boasted 200 auxiliaries (local chapters), and by 1838, a remarkable 1,350, representing some 250,000 members. . . . Garrison's fundamental objection to the colonization movement was its failure to stress the moral evil of slavery. " [Howe: What Hath God Wrought, p. 425-7]